This morning on TV before I went to church so I didn't hear what conclusion they reached - if any - they were debating whether Islam itself was to blame for islamic extremism.

No, it isn't Islam or Christianity or Judaism or Atheism or Communism or Fascism or any belief system going which is in itself to blame. It is those fundamentalists of any and all beliefs who brook no opposition to their views and feel it necessary to beat other people into submission to those beliefs.

I remember how certain I was about everything when I was in my teens and twenties. I was right and that was that - no arguments. We are most of us like that in our youth, and for most of us time mellows our views and, even when we remain certain, we feel that we can allow others their misconceived beliefs without feeling any rancour towards them.

Sadly, some people don't, and a few of them take their views to their most violent extremes and preach this violence to the young, who - especially the young men - are at their most susceptible, full of hormones and itching for a fight even to the extent of being willing to lay down their lives. Even worse some of the manipulators aren't even wholly convinced of the truth of their own arguments, but use them to create a position of seemingly unassailable power for themselves; one only has to have a quick glance through the pages of history to see how many heroes of the revolution ended up as the most monstrous dictators.

The world may condemn suicide bombers, but so many of them are so young that I cannot help but feel sorry for them caught when they are vulnerable in that spider's web of extremism and never given an opportunity to grow into the reasonable tolerance which characterises the silent(ish) majority of humankind. And if you don't believe such a thing is possible, look at many of those in the government of Northern Ireland.